


Whispers

by Warpony



Series: Feral Echoes [29]
Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Brotherly Bonding, Driders, M/M, Platonic Romance, Soldier Boys, Spells & Enchantments, Treasure Hunting, Tyrannosaurus, shadowgast if you squint
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-03
Updated: 2020-09-03
Packaged: 2021-03-06 18:53:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,494
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26263732
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Warpony/pseuds/Warpony
Summary: "I thought this was your childhood dream, brother?" The Shadowhand teased gently, carefully extracting a crumbling tome from dalapitated shelves to inspect. "The two of us adventuring together? Searching for treasures in mysterious ruins and wild forests."
Relationships: Verin Thelyss/Original Character(s)
Series: Feral Echoes [29]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1711534
Comments: 4
Kudos: 25





	Whispers

"This place turns my stomach, Essek." Verin's hand ruffled the wrong way through his long, platinum hair. Most of the braids had started to come loose, his dusky skin feeling a bit chilled. 

The echo knight had always thought the Underdark would be warm. It was steadily growing colder and he was getting steadily more uncomfortable under his armor and wishing for warmer clothes. 

"I thought this was your childhood dream, brother?" The Shadowhand teased gently, carefully extracting a crumbling tome from dalapitated shelves to inspect. "The two of us adventuring together? Searching for treasures in mysterious ruins and wild forests."

Verin couldn't help a smile. "It is. And better still for the friends we've made-"

The echo knight's eyes cast out around them and silencing himself a moment to listen if he could hear or spot any signs of the other members of the Nein scattered in the ruin around them. Somewhere above there was a faint glow of a lantern or Caleb Widogast's dancing lights cantrip, but no more sign made itself known. The chamber spiraled upwards in a many layered coil, like a giant snail shell, back towards the surface. 

"-that doesn't stop the way my stomach twists being here. I do not know how our ancestors survived so long in such places. I do not know how our cousins still do beyond Xhorhas." Verin's brow dipped at the thought, his nose crinkling a bit. 

Essek hummed, pausing from pursuing the few brittle books they'd found to look up around them. He tried to listen and sense what Verin was. There was a disquiet here but only the kind that came with unfamiliar territory. Not some ancestral unease that the echo knight was claiming. 

"They hate us you know."

"What?" Essek ask, turning his pale eyes to meet Verin's honey colored ones, his shoulders going suddenly tense and holding his breath for a moment.

"The drow that still live in the Underdark. They hate us. Kryn Drow. Hate us like the Duergar do. Because of _her_. She hates us more than anything so she whispers to them to hate us, too. So they say." Verin nearly whispered it, almost conspiratorially, like they were children again muttering secrets to each other they shouldn't have overheard. 

"There are Duergar amongst the peoples of Rosohna, Verin." Essek rolled his eyes looking back to books, tension sliding out of him. 

"Have any of them ever been friendly to you?" The echo knight asked with a chuff that sounded like he'd adopted it from his firbolg partner. 

"To be fair, few are anything but coldly polite to me. I did not expect you to be so susceptible to ghost stories and rumors, brother." Essek teased, moving on. His dark vision peering at the books and skimming ancient Undercommon. He was starting to feel desperate to find what they were looking for. Here in the broken bits of the Ghor Dranas Underdark, beyond the edges of the Shadowshire and saftey of Rosohna's green lamps and the range of the Aurora Watch, Essek was desperate to find maps or archives or ledges with any kind of idea to give away the hidden locations of troves of relics and artifacts. He'd come to a dead end in his own research within the Marbled Tomes and the private libraries of the Lucid Bastion. 

Though Caleb and Beauregard had both offered to escort him to one of the great libraries of the Cobalt Soul it had felt dangerous to breech such a line. Essek was sorely tempted but still afraid. Still feeling as if he was treading dangerous waters with his friends. 

Though, perhaps asking them to accompany him on an escapade into the Underdark of Ghor Dranas might have be just as equally dangerous in a different manner.

"Its true Essek, spoken by those that were there." Verin grumbled as he followed behind. 

"Mother was _not_ there, Verin." Essek snorted. 

"Since when would I ever have casually conversations about the Spider Queen with _Mother_. She barely lets us call her that these days anyways, might as well start referring to her as Deirta. You are not the only one well connected and in the company of elder souls, Essek. I know more than my fair share of Umavi and ancient ones that are either relieved to discuss anything but politics or just a bit mad enough to discuss _anything_."

Essek stopped in his tracks and turned to look towards Verin, his eyes narrowed suspiciously though there was certainly a hint of sly intrigue in his gaze. "... we are going to discuss that information at a later time."

" _That_ is dependent on what you have to trade, brother dear." Verin chuckled softly. "... but it makes it no less true."

"You are beginning to sound like Caduceus when he speaks about the Wildmother." The Shadowhand carefully pulled another frail tome from the shelves and carefully turned a few pages. Not what he was looking for but he slipped it into a pocket dimension to study later.

"Surely you have no fear of the Spider Queen if you have the protection of the Luxon." A voice like old, cracked paper whispered through the shadows. 

Verin moved like lightening, instantly drawing his Estoc blade and putting himself between Essek and the direction of the voice. His fingers of his free hand thrumming across the curve of an obsidian earring in one ear to call up an Echo. The shadow of himself swirling to life behind them to protect their back with a mimicked blade made of darkness. 

The Shadowhand instinctively lifted himself off the earth, poised midair and hands twisted and drawing a _Sending_ and whispering a swift message to Caleb. 

He'd barely finished the spell before the fire mage’s response came back, threading through his mind, reassuring and promising to hurry to meet them.

"Show yourself." Verin commanded, eyes already making out a shape in the dark moving towards them. 

The shape crept forwards until their features became clear. Distinctly drow but seemingly ancient; bone white hair falling nearly to the floor around the elderly woman's face. Her eyes paler than even Essek's, nearly white themselves. She moved as if her joints were stiffened with age, wrapped in shawls and robes that almost looked like burial shrouds and slipping a book into a pack on her hip with creaking movements. 

It had been a very long time since either of the brothers had seen a drow so ancient. Few let themselves grow to such a great age with the promise if rebirth at hand. Some even purposefully ending their lives to avoid such physical 'decay'. 

"Who are you, ancient one?" Verin's tone left no room for argument or ignoring commands. 

The elderly drow let out a whispery, crackling sound that might have been a laugh. "Jinaxian. A humble servant of our wonderous Queen and a scavenger of ruins since I am so far beyond my years of strength and virility. I must sustain myself somehow."

She gave a creaking little bow that for a moment Verin feared she wouldn't straighten up again. The echo knight didn't relax. He stayed firmly in front of Essek, moving and pacing to keep himself sentinel between the stranger and his brother. His blade held back, held at a point of tension and ready to snap out a strike without any need for wind up.

"As I said. Young warrior and wizard. You seem sure of yourselves, are you not? Bathed in the light if your Luxon? To have come down here to hunt among the bones and relics of your shunned ancestors and speak so callously of the Spider Queen." Jinaxian hummed. 

Verin grit his teeth, actually showing his curved canines. 

Essek scoffed. "Are there other ways to speak of a Betrayer?"

"Being of the stock we are, child, you should be well aware it is the victors of battles that decide how history is written. Does not the Empire write song and prose of the savage stupidity and cruelties of the drow? Cricks? Underscum? Dirt-elves? Are these so different as 'Betrayer'? And two young souls such as yourselves hardly seem to know the first thing about Lolth to whisper so?" The elderly drow gave another wheezing little laugh as she tucked yet another book away into her bag. 

Behind him Verin felt Essek tense and sway forwards as if he intended to stop her but the echo knight stood his ground, keeping the Shadowhand back. 

"You speak as if Lolth was once kind." Verin grit out, very slowly starting to edge Essek backwards. He was beginning to think when Jinaxian had said she was a 'servant of the Queen' she had been vauge on purpose. 

"Kindness comes in many forms, young ones. There is a kindness to harshness in a strange way. Nature is often considered harsh and cruel and yet it is the greatest teacher this world offers us. Makes sure the strongest and keenest survive. Especially those among their favorites. Our Lady wrought the will of many others to spare our ancestors the harshness of the Calamity itself. So great was Her love for us to spare us such a terrible war while She Herself suffered the pains and atrocities brought down on Her from other gods. For our sake. Her sacrifice for us... but of course the Luxon loves the drow as She does, does it not?"

There was a queer, sly pull to Jinaxian's lips that made Verin's stomach twist unpleasantly. 

"Does it not, young ones?" She prompted again, sliding another book into her pack.

The brothers stayed silent. Her grin seemed to grow sharper as she advanced slowly on them. Verin instantly urging Essek back a bit faster, keeping a good distance between them and the elderly woman. Either she saw something on their faces she was looking for or decided to forge ahead despite there reaction. 

"Oh, sweet lost children. Surely the Luxon whispers to you as all gods do. Tells you you're loved. Guides you with your devotion. Surely it was worth following?" Her voice sounded so much like poisoned honey, tempting and delicate to look at, leathal to entertain.

The brothers stayed silent. Neither willing to speak more to keep from each other their own secret misgivings about the Luxon's divinity than forfeit it to the stranger. 

Jinaxian cooed softly to them, "Oh younglings. You deserve so much better. Lolth would treat you well, treat you as you deserve to be loved and cared for. Teach you how to weave a web of love and fear and control of those around you. You could be so much more than you are. Join Her. Join us."

Verin felt the thrall of spellwork trying to creep against his mind and shook it away, tilting his head back to make sure Essek's eyes were clear. The Taskhand's face was scrunched and twisted as if fighting off a particularly savage headache. It seemed the bulk of the spell had been aimed towards Essek. 

The Shadowhand lifted his hand as if to rub his eyes but murmured softly to a copper wire bracelet around his wrist. Essek caught Verin's eye and ask his hand came down again he twisted his fingers in a single word of Nein sign, not risking giving away to much attention to Jinaxian. 

_'Shout'_

Verin looked back towards Jinaxian. "A tempting offer. Is the Spider Queen listening in right now? I hope she is. I want her to hear my reply-"

Verin pitched his voice up into a yell, his voice echoing like it was on the battlefield as it spiraled upwards in the chamber above them. 

"Oh Lolth! Creepy, crawling bitch! Weaver of lies! Go fuck yourself!"

Jinaxian grinned a bit wider, a low laugh turning into a rattling hiss as her body started to change. Twisting and warping, her body ballooning grotesquely and ripping apart with the sounds of crunching insect like shell. Her age fell away to a gaunt youth and her abdomen swelled and burst with eight long jointed legs. The glamour fell away and an adult drider reared up in front of them. 

She hissed again, grinning as she started towards the brothers, "Truly, I was hoping I'd be given the chance to dispose of you both. I haven't had such a meal walk into my territory in a very long time."

"Its your lucky day then it seems," Verin gave a jerk of his hand. His Echo, that had been creeping slowly around unnoticed all this time, lunged from the shadows. Its dark sword slashing out and slicing through the strap of the bag around Jinaxian's torso. The Echo snatched the bag as it fell and hurled it towards Verin and Essek as one of the drider's thick legs speared through it and scattered it like dust. 

Essek's hand twisted, his gravity cantrip catching the satchel and bringing it straight into his hands. The Shadowhand actually breathed a small sigh of relief with the unknown artifacts safe in his hands, "Thank you, dear brother."

Jinaxian hissed another low laugh, "A waste of a spell, boy."

"Thats up to the perspective of the victor. Isn't it, insect?" Verin gave his own sly smile. 

An eerie, soft sound echoed faintly around them. A sound very much like something very, _very_ large was plummeting at top speed through the air. 

The drider twitched a glance upward but had no time to react to the titantic shapes that dropped down on her from above with all the force of meteorites striking the earth. The horrific sound of bones and insectoid carapace shattering were drowned by her shriek of pain as Jinaxian's legs and abdomen splintered and scattered under the impact and weight of both Brunnera's Enlarged form and Caleb’s new favorite Polymorphed shape of a bengal Tyrannosaurus Rex crashed down on top of her brutally from an unknown height in the distant levels of the chamber above them. 

Caleb roared before ripping the rest of the drider's legs off ruthlessly and smashing his tail down on both monster and floor in a frenzy. Brunnera wasted no time as he plunged both his Dao swords deep into her spine, a crackling spark of ruinic magic surged to life as _Thutvli_ activated and for a moment the dark of the chamber was sundered by an explosion of bluish lightening ripping the drider further apart and left Essek and Verin wincing, momentarily blinded and dazed.

The brothers looked up as the darkness and their now blotted Darkvision was finally boken from above as the rest of the Nein decended towards them at much safer and more sedate Feather Falls, Slow Falls, gripping the talons of Jester's Polymorphed owl form and Yasha’s hands as she glided in a lazy spiral. The pale glow of lanterns swinging from their hands and belts. Verin and Essek waved them over, paying no mind as the wizard and fighter made short work of the drider.

**Author's Note:**

> Smash the spider!
> 
> So I found this D&D Race Insult/Slur generator thing and it is both terrible and wonderful and I both hate and love using it. 
> 
> There's some insults in there for firbolgs that are gonna make Verin and Fjord go apeshit.
> 
> I hope you all enjoyed! Thank you all so much for reading!


End file.
